The Nielsen Streaming Charts For Skeleton Crew
As you may know I look at how each and every Disney+ Star Wars series performs on the streaming charts. Earlier in 2024 I also added Luminate to the picture and looked at their charts. And I already talked about the Luminate charts for Skeleton Crew previously, because their charts are released in a much more timely fashion. Nielsen has a four week delay, Luminate usually posts their charts 24 hours or so after the data gathering period has ended for the week (however, Luminate have not updated their charts since mid December).
So what do the Nielsen streaming charts say? Did Skeleton Crew perform any better here after never making the top 10 Luminate streaming charts? Click through for the details!
No love for Neel
Well… Skeleton Crew did not make the top 10, just like on the Luminate charts. So Luminate and Nielsen agree. The #10 show on the Nielsen original series charts has 384 million minutes watchtime.
This is the first time a live action Star Wars series has not made it into the top 10 Nielsen original series charts with its first episode. This is a major disappointment for Lucasfilm and it should also greatly worry them. Is it possible The Acolyte and other often somewhat lackluster shows (Ahsoka, The Mandalorian season 3, Obi-Wan Kenobi) turned people away from Star Wars content on Disney+?
This is what the other shows had in week 1 on the Nielsen streaming charts:
The Mandalorian S2: 1,032 million minutes
The Book of Boba Fett: 389 million minutes
Obi-Wan Kenobi: 1,026 million minutes (two episodes)
Andor: 624 million minutes (three episodes)
The Mandalorian S3: 823 million minutes
Ahsoka: 829 million minutes (two episodes)
The Acolyte: 488 million minutes (two episodes)
And now Skeleton Crew with two episodes and about 70 minutes runtime didn’t even manage to get 385 million minutes, to barely make the top 10. And if you look at the Book of Boba Fett’s numbers, this was for just one episode with a 37 minute (with credits) runtime, so just about half of what Skeleton Crew had with two episodes in week 1. Skeleton Crew would have needed about 5.5 million views for the two episodes on Disney+ in the US to make it into the top 10. It didn’t even reach that pretty low – for a Star Wars Series – number.
I believe Skeleton Crew will not enter the top 10 charts even once. The views for a $130+ million show must be abysmally low. It’s also telling that Disney didn’t even try to spin it all into a success story as they still tried for The Acolyte, by posting their own numbers with global views. In fact, we have heard nothing from them. The numbers must be so bad that no PR spin in the world can make it look like a success story.
If I were Lucasfilm I’d be worried that the Mandalorion & Grogu movie may actually underperform. They really need to get the marketing right this time and Jon Favreau must recapture the magic of the first two seasons. Or else Star Wars might be in real trouble.
Fact is that a show that has mostly positive reviews by the people who do watch it has failed to gain any traction. This is especially worrying, because usually you’d think word of mouth would have a positive effect.
Also, Skeleton Crew had a much higher chance to enter the top 10 Nielsen charts, because Nielsen’s data gathering window is much more favorable to shows in week 1. Luminate stops gathering data for the week at midnight on Thursday. So Skeleton Crew had only a little more than two days time to accumulate watchtime. Nielsen however collect data from Monday through Sunday, so Skeleton Crew had more than five days to accumulate watchtime in its first week.
I believe it is time for Disney to clean house at Lucasfilm. Regardless of the quality of the shows budgets for everything are out of control. Not just the shows, but also the movie(s), well, the one Lucasfilm made (Indy 5). That Lucasfilm spent almost 1 billion dollars (after tax credits) on Andor, The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew is insane.
I also believe that the age of Disney+ Star Wars series may be nearing its end. Star Wars requires certain production qualities, you can’t make wordy dramas for Star Wars where people just sit at a table and talk, you need the action, the CGI, the planets, the set pieces… and this will never come cheap. They clearly have not found a way to make Star Wars streaming shows for reasonable budgets. Obi-Wan Kenobi with a reported $90 million budget came close, but that show also looked awfully cheap, at times like a fan production.
More importantly though there is a distinct possibility that people have fallen out of love with Star Wars after one too many disappointments. Merchandise sales reflect this as well, which are, as far as we know, at an alltime low even now.
I said it before, I’ll say it again… if Disney does not want Star Wars to die with a whimper they need to clean house, replace Kennedy, hire all new creative people and develop a proper plan and coherent vision for the franchise. As it is now the shows jump around on the timeline, there is no common thread really, it all feels very scattershot, almost random.
Ultimately Star Wars is maybe not meant to be made for the small screen. Unlike Star Trek which in comparison was not made for the big screen, Star Trek movies never really were huge hits, because all the things people love about Star Trek are best realized on tv/streaming. And all the things that people love about Star Wars may be impossible to make for tv/streaming at reasonable budgets. Unless maybe it’s animated like The Clone Wars. But live action Star Wars comes with a lot of expectations you have to meet.
I would not be surprised if Ahsoka season 2 is the last Star Wars live action series on Disney+. The views Disney gets with these shows (outside of The Mandalorian and that is trying to become a movie series) do not justify the enormous production costs. It’s as simple as that.
What else. Disney+ continues to woefully underperform on the streaming charts. No original series is in the top 10. Bluey is the only thing Disney has on the acquired series charts, and this is not even their own IP. The only movie on the charts is the classic Home Alone, which is a Christmas classic and always in the charts in December. Another old Christmas movie, Elf, is in the top 10 movie charts for Hulu/Max, so it’s not even exclusive to Hulu. Disney+ may be the second biggest streaming service behind Netflix on paper… but they have no tentpole content, they have no Stranger Things, no Squid Game, no One Piece, The Mandalorian was an overnight sensation, but none of the other shows could ever recapture that success and instead we see diminishing returns with dwindling viewership for show after show, to the point the Ahsoka season finale had less viewers than the Andor season finale. Then The Acolyte cratered… and now Skeleton Crew, even though it’s among the best things Lucasfilm has made under Disney, is a complete dud when it comes to viewership.
When even shows that are well received no longer find an audience… it’s high time to spring into action. Lucasfilm needs changes. Sooner than later.
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